Everything i need to know about "init-param"?

Greetings, Can someone, in plain english, explain to me everythin one would need to know about <init-param>. How to use it, why advantages, disadvantages etc. Thank you <servlet> <servlet-name>ServletName</servlet-name> <servlet-class>full classpath</servlet-class>

init params are the preferred way of communicating setup information to a servlet. They are more flexible than hard coding things like file locations into your servlet code. Thats about all there is to say about that. Bill